Why is user research important?

In this video, user researchers explain why they think user research is important.

User research is important because people will always do things in different ways and can do things that surprise us. Users frequently do the ‘wrong’ things with products or services – just watch this video!

When it comes to building products and services, our own assumptions about how people will behave or what motivates them are not enough. People will surprise you – and that’s a good thing!

With user research, we gain insight into the problems we’re trying to solve for users and how users approach them. By researching, we learn things that aren’t immediately obvious, like users finding workarounds or different ways to complete a task.

If we do not understand our users, we will not know what to build or if the product or service we create will work well for people – and we may end up designing and building completely the wrong thing. This wastes time, effort and money for everyone involved.

In the private sector, the motivation to build a good product is generally financial. User research helps companies to understand their users and design optimal products. If you understand your users (also called customers, in this case!) better than your competitors, your product will have the edge. That means more people will buy it or subscribe to it and you will earn more money – simple!

In government, it is slightly different. We build products and services that people need to interact with on a daily basis to complete vital tasks, such as pay taxes, apply for a passport, find information about housing, and so many more.

By doing good research, we can design products and services that:

• work for members of the public, businesses and civil servants (or government employees)
• achieve policy goals
• cost less to build and to run

We need to understand our users and what they need to do so that we can build products and services that allow them to meet their needs.

Task

Think about the product or service that you discussed in Step 1.3. Think about your experience of using it – what worked or did not work? From your perspective as a user, why do you think that is?